Bits of Books - Books by Title

Drop Dead Healthy

One Man's Humble Quest For Bodily Perfection

A.J.Jacobs

Has a wife skilled at behaviour modification: "She'll refer to me as Buddha. Or she'll ask,'So when are you due?' When she wants to be especially subtle, she'll just whistle the Winnie-the-Pooh theme song as she walks past." When he was reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica from cover to cover, she fined him a dollar for every irrelevant fact that he inserted into the conversation.

Grandfather used to tease his wife by reading out passage from Bartlett's Quotations: "When people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition until death do them part." But Grandma eventually got her revenge. She tore the page out of the book, and that was the end of the readings.

Orthorexia - the mania for the 'correct' diet. You know you've got disease if when you stray away from healthy food you're filled with guilt and self-loathing, and if it's become your religion - it makes you feel virtuous

Very difficult to be definitive about what is good and bad food. Impossible to conduct controlled studies of human beings. Have to work from animal studies and statistical analysis. But so many variables that there are no black and white answers.

Ernest Borgnine interviewed at 94 (He got an Emmy nomination for ER at age of 92). Asked secret of longevity "I masturbate a lot."

Pain an example of how evo does a bad job. Pain is like a sentry in watchtower, ringing he bell when something wrong. But he keeps ringing the bell even after you know about the problem. Sometimes he keeps ringing long after the problem has been fixed.

"I've been on the hunt for some good inspirational slogans ever since I had to stop using Nike's beautifully succinct "Just do it!" (I discovered that the advertising copywriter got the idea for the phrase from the last words of executed murderer Gary Gilmore.So I can't say it without thinking of a firing squad.)"

Elective surgery for people who want to change the way they sound. When they fart. From a high pitch to a lower one. A baritone.